Tuesday, June 04, 2013

Major League Baseball will seek to suspend about 20 players connected to the Miami-area clinic at the heart of an ongoing performance-enhancing drug scandal, including Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun, possibly within the next few weeks, “Outside the Lines” has learned. If the suspensions are upheld, the performance-enhancing drug scandal would be the largest in American sports history.

Tony Bosch, founder of the now-shuttered Biogenesis of America, reached an agreement this week to cooperate with MLB’s investigation, two sources told “Outside the Lines,” giving MLB the ammunition officials believe they need to suspend the players.

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One source familiar with the case said the commissioner's office might seek 100-game suspensions for Rodriguez, Braun and other players, the penalty for a second doping offense. The argument, the source said, is the players' connection to Bosch constitutes one offense, and previous statements to MLB officials denying any such connection or the use of PEDs constitute another.

Trying to pin 100 game suspensions on Braun and A-Rod (and presumably anyone else who denied the initial rumors) seems like a ridiculous overreach.

Tony Bosch, founder of the now-shuttered Biogenesis of America, reached an agreement this week to cooperate with MLB’s investigation, two sources told “Outside the Lines,” giving MLB the ammunition officials believe they need to suspend the players.

Compare the size of football players today to players of the 70's. 350 lb. linemen, who are fast, doesn't happen naturally. A life expectancy 25 years shorter than the general population doesn't happen naturally.

The NFL PED policy is just a hollow shell to allow their sycophantic minions in the press to give them a pass on the issue.

One source familiar with the case said the commissioner's office might seek 100-game suspensions for Rodriguez, Braun and other players, the penalty for a second doping offense. The argument, the source said, is the players' connection to Bosch constitutes one offense, and previous statements to MLB officials denying any such connection or the use of PEDs constitute another. Bosch and his attorneys did not return several calls.

Here's what the Joint Drug Program calls for:

A Player who tests positive for a Performance Enhancing Substance, or otherwise violates the Program through the use or possession of a Performance Enhancing Substance, will be subject to the discipline set forth below.

1. First violation: 50-game suspension;

2. Second violation: 100-game suspension; and

3. Third violation: Permanent suspension from Major League and Minor League Baseball

(ed. note: with a provision for reinstatement)

Neither the player's connection to Bosch, nor their denials to MLB, by themselves, look like they constitute a "violation of the program through the use or possession of" a PED. So I will be interested to see how MLB presents this, and how the MLBPA responds.

Oh look, LionoftheSenate brings up the NFL out of the blue. So predictable.

PEDs and the NFL are one of the same. Hardly out of the blue. MLB might be better off talking tough and doing little like the NFL or risk doing real damage. I do not think PEDs are going to be eliminated, I'm not that naïve.

Tony Bosch, founder of the now-shuttered Biogenesis of America, reached an agreement this week to cooperate with MLB’s investigation, two sources told “Outside the Lines,” giving MLB the ammunition officials believe they need to suspend the players.

I can't imagine Bosch would cooperate without immunity from both the state and Feds. Can't see how he could implicate any player without implicating himself -- if he tries to do so, would he have any credibility? But why would the government give Bosch immunity to go after low-level users? Because some are famous? Maybe, but that's not how it is supposed to work. I'm still skeptical that MLB will be able to make its case.

Ryan Braun is a fun player to watch, even though he wreaks havoc on my favorite team 16 times a season. That said, he's always come off as a smug, unlikeable #######, a perception that only seemed to intensify when he won his case over a technicality. So yeah, I'm in favor of this.

Compare the size of football players today to players of the 70's. 350 lb. linemen, who are fast, doesn't happen naturally. A life expectancy 25 years shorter than the general population doesn't happen naturally.

Yes. I am not a nutrionist (IANAN), but I have a queasy suspicion that some of the increase in size, both of linemen and the average waistline, is due to the amount of steroids that are given to livestock. The recent news about Smithfield pork being sold to a Chinese entity had the subtext that Smithfield had stopped using the pork PED ractopamine about a year ago in the run-up to the deal. Many countries have banned ractopamine, as it is detectable in the consumable meat. I don't imagine the situation is very different for beef and lamb.

Wait, I thought the clinic backed up Braun's assertion that he never received any treatment there and only appears on the books because he had hired him as a consultant in his earlier PED appeal?

Yes. I am not a nutrionist (IANAN), but I have a queasy suspicion that some of the increase in size, both of linemen and the average waistline, is due to the amount of steroids that are given to livestock. The recent news about Smithfield pork being sold to a Chinese entity had the subtext that Smithfield had stopped using the pork PED ractopamine about a year ago in the run-up to the deal. Many countries have banned ractopamine, as it is detectable in the consumable meat. I don't imagine the situation is very different for beef and lamb.

I agree with this 100%. There are tons of 300 lb. football players in the high school ranks now and many of them are from demographics far too impoverished to claim steroid use is widespread enough to explain this.

Unless they've got something else besides what Bosch gives them, I am as well. But I think that MLB is trying, once again, to convict the players in the court of public opinion rather than acting in a straightforward manner. If MLB thought they had enough to warrant a suspension, they'd do it.

I agree with this 100%. There are tons of 300 lb. football players in the high school ranks now and many of them are from demographics far too impoverished to claim steroid use is widespread enough to explain this.

I'm open to this, food additives leading to currently unknown outcomes, but haven't people been getting larger, taller too, for over a 100 years now?

Yes. I am not a nutrionist (IANAN), but I have a queasy suspicion that some of the increase in size, both of linemen and the average waistline, is due to the amount of steroids that are given to livestock.

Ocam's razor votes no, a thousand times no. The increase in size is due to modern science and nutrition, legal or otherwise. 30 years ago even guys were still doing isometric exercises and their "nutrition" consisted of pizza and beer. Now you've got personal chefs for players, legal supplements like creatine, illegal ones like synthetic T, and lifting programs that are dialed in to the Nth degree to build muscle and core strength.

There is no need to resort to steroids in meat as the explanation, not even close.

I've heard some saying that MLB is counting lying to their investigators as being a "second violation" warranting 100 game suspensions. Looking at the language of the agreement, I can't believe that that would possibly hold up.

If the evidence isn't solid, MLB ought to back off. A suspension damn well better be based on a truly formidable amount of evidence. It doesn't have to rise to the level of a positive test (i.e. I'll accept strong circumstantial evidence), but this article doesn't pull enough skeins together from what I'm reading.

And everybody here knows what I think about PEDs, Ryan Braun, A-Rod, etc.

I've heard some saying that MLB is counting lying to their investigators as being a "second violation" warranting 100 game suspensions.

If this is true I'm troubled. I've always felt that the law the Feds have giving them such incredible power in criminal investigations (i.e. it's a crime to lie to a federal investigator, whereas it is emphatically NOT a crime to lie to state-level police authorities) is a gross overreach of state power...I see no reason why MLB should be able to adopt the same abuse-prone rule. If it's in the CBA, then more fool the Player's Association, I suppose, but I have a hard time believing they'd have signed off on that.

Question: what happens to the money the players are owed during their suspensions? Does the team pay the league an equivalent sum like a fine or do the teams just keep the money and the player goes unpaid??

There is no need to resort to steroids in meat as the explanation, not even close.

I agree that the factors you mentioned are more important. I understand that the age kids are reaching puberty has been dropping (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/251762.php). This is also been linked to hormones in meat, at least according to the University of Brighton (http://www.naturalnews.com/030141_hormones_puberty.html). This might affect the size of high school linemen, but probably not professionals.

As ABC News reported it: "The average life expectancy of a retired football player is 58, according to the NFL Players Association ... a stark contrast to the average American man's life expectancy of 75."

The trouble is that this oft-repeated number (sometimes 58, other times 55) is false. That bit of gridiron legend has been around since at least 1990, when the NFLPA asked the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to investigate the statistic's accuracy. NIOSH tracked nearly 7,000 players and issued a report, in '94, concluding that NFL retirees were dying at about half the rate of their American male peers. In other words NFL players, in general, live longer.

In January, a second NIOSH report again found that NFL players were outliving their non-NFL cohort, partly due to lower cancer rates that could be the result of their lower rate of smoking. NIOSH also found that former players were at a decreased risk of dying from heart disease (with the exception of players who had a high body mass index). And the rate of suicide among NFL vets was 59% lower than in the general population. Overall, for the 3,439 ex--NFL players in the more recent study, NIOSH projected 625 deaths, using nonathlete mortality rates, but observed only 334 (chart).

I agree that the factors you mentioned are more important. I understand that the age kids are reaching puberty has been dropping (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/251762.php). This is also been linked to hormones in meat, at least according to the University of Brighton (http://www.naturalnews.com/030141_hormones_puberty.html). This might affect the size of high school linemen, but probably not professionals.

The puberty thing is a big red flag that something is going on.

The average age of puberty for girls has dropped 2 to 3 years in the last 100+ years. Some of that is less malnutrition, but that's a big change.

I really cannot understand MLB's strategy here beyond the level of "you know what, #### these guys, we can't nail them with hard evidence so let's just throw a bunch of #### to the press and smear their reputations anyway." I mean they can't seriously think they're going to get away with suspending these guys, can they? And trying to suspend players who have never been suspended for PEDs before for 100 games is batshit crazy.

It still smells a lot like Bud is pursuing personal vendettas against Braun and A-Rod with the relentless ferocity of a roomful of women scorned.

And since most supplements do not work (except for the ones that illegally contain steroids or amphetamines), you're a two-time idiot.

I'm sure the supplements sold at WalMart are lacking in efficacy. But I'm just as certain the stuff elite athletes use does work, call them steroids or testosterone or whatever, there is a story somewhere that science has probably created PEDs that are essentially wonder drugs with mostly positive side effects and few downsides. Of course we can't talk about this.

I really cannot understand MLB's strategy here beyond the level of "you know what, #### these guys, we can't nail them with hard evidence so let's just throw a bunch of shiit to the press and smear their reputations anyway." I mean they can't seriously think they're going to get away with suspending these guys, can they? And trying to suspend players who have never been suspended for PEDs before for 100 games is batshit craz

I can't belivee that no one has brought this up in this thread until post 40--IT IS ILLEGAL FOR MLB TO LEAK THIS siit!!!!! Under the current CBA, suspensions don't exist (literally, don't exist) until the PLAYER agrees not to fight them

But I'm just as certain the stuff elite athletes use does work, call them steroids or testosterone or whatever, there is a story somewhere that science has probably created PEDs that are essentially wonder drugs with mostly positive side effects and few downsides.

Some of the things that athletes take work. But some of them certainly don't. Lots of them are still wearing ionized bracelets.

Consider this SI article that described the company that sold the deer antler spray:

Like the star of an infomercial flush with catchphrases -- "Guys, this stuff is beyond real!" -- Key also showed the players gallon jugs of "negatively charged" water, which he claimed would afford them better hydration because it adheres like a magnet to the body's cells. Then he held up a canister containing a powder additive, to be mixed in water or juice, that he said had put muscle mass on a woman who was in a coma, and an oscillating "beam ray" lightbulb that could "knock out" the swine flu virus in 90 minutes. Finally, he pulled out a bottle of deer-antler spray (which also comes in pill form).

I'm pretty confident in saying that most of the supplements that are made available to pro athletes are nonsense, and that plenty of athletes take them anyway.

Posting as an actual practicing labor lawyer - The credibility of a guy who is admitting he violated the law but has an agreement with MLB to pay for his defense will really stand up under cross examination. Plus, MLB has the burden of proof to show that the player used performance enhancing drugs. A negative test during the period in question is either a collateral attack on its own testing regime or exculpatory evidence. And, there's the whole double jeopardy issue with Cabrera and Colon. Oh, and trying to double charge them for not admitting it is just absurd.

Harveys (44): Do you think there's an extra level of personal animosity for Bud there because he thinks Braun has besmirched the Brewers' good name? Or is it purely about being pissed off Braun got off on a technicality and made off with an MVP award?

I can't belivee that no one has brought this up in this thread until post 40--IT IS ILLEGAL FOR MLB TO LEAK THIS siit!!!!! Under the current CBA, suspensions don't exist (literally, don't exist) until the PLAYER agrees not to fight them

I'd love if once, just once, MLB had a big to-do and internal investigation after a leak and ran the leaker out of town on a rail.

I can't belivee that no one has brought this up in this thread until post 40--IT IS ILLEGAL FOR MLB TO LEAK THIS siit!!!!! Under the current CBA, suspensions don't exist (literally, don't exist) until the PLAYER agrees not to fight them

I'd love if once, just once, MLB had a big to-do and internal investigation after a leak and ran the leaker out of town on a rail.

Naturally, this presumes these leaks aren't intentional HAHAHAHA

Well, everyone got indignant that MLB leaked the Braun test before his appeal hearing (or so they assumed), but when Braun's legal team admitted that the leak originated with someone they had involved in the case, it barely got any attention. Everyone loves to assume that big bad MLB is leaking details to the press to smear its own players.

Okay, so there has to be somebody above Nelson Cruz level but below Ryan Braun level, I guess. Seeing as how Gio Gonzalez was exonerated as having only gotten legal stuff through them...

Cano. There was already a story a few months back about someone who runs his foundation having her name in the Biogenesis files. MLB will probably attempt to prove (with testimony from Bosch) that she was basically a courier for Cano.

Ocam's razor votes no, a thousand times no. The increase in size is due to modern science and nutrition, legal or otherwise. 30 years ago even guys were still doing isometric exercises and their "nutrition" consisted of pizza and beer. Now you've got personal chefs for players, legal supplements like creatine, illegal ones like synthetic T, and lifting programs that are dialed in to the Nth degree to build muscle and core strength.

There is no need to resort to steroids in meat as the explanation, not even close.

Andrew Marchand tweet: "Sr. Yankee official told me team has been informed Cano "is not" in danger of being suspended in Biogenesis scandal"

"... And yet," continued Randy Levine, "we're happy to have Cano's name associated with this, if it helps depress the number of suitors when he becomes a FA this fall, not to mention the # of years and overall $$$ in the offers we're going to have to overbid to keep him."

Andrew Marchand tweet: "Sr. Yankee official told me team has been informed Cano "is not" in danger of being suspended in Biogenesis scandal"

So MLB has told the teams who is and who isn't in the crosshairs here? That's interesting. If that's true then I'm sure we'll see plenty more leaks from "Sr. <team X> official" over the next few weeks.

Harveys, I had the same questions as Zeth....what about Selig's relationship with Attanasio? Is that in good standing? It would seem not to be based on this hunt for Braun...no? I wonder if Selig is jealous that Attanasio is more liked as an owner than Selig was. He is.

I understand that the age kids are reaching puberty has been dropping (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/251762.php). This is also been linked to hormones in meat, at least according to the University of Brighton (http://www.naturalnews.com/030141_hormones_puberty.html). This might affect the size of high school linemen, but probably not professionals.

Straight from the article on the Brighton study:

The researchers attributed the effect of meat largely to improved nutrition.

"Meat is a good source of zinc and iron, requirements for which are high during pregnancy," lead researcher Imogen Rogers said. "A meat-rich diet could be seen as indicating suitable nutritional conditions for a successful pregnancy."

They also talk about "endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the environment" as a possible contributing factor, but they never once discuss animal growth supplements.

Well, now we can fill in those blanks, can't we? With the names of Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun, just for starters. But that's not all. The only reason to stop at those two names is that the rest won't fit in a single headline.

What ESPN's T.J. Quinn, Mike Fish and Pedro Gomez are reporting is the list of players who face possible suspensions is actually much longer than the dynamic duo of Braun and A-Rod.

Longer than a lineup card. Longer than two lineup cards. Possibly even longer than that.

And if you believe the rumor mill, Braun and A-Rod might not even be the biggest names on that list. But we're getting way ahead of ourselves on that front.

Where this goes from here all depends on baseball's new best friend, Tony Bosch. He's the human smoking gun in this case, the kind of source that rarely comes along when performance-enhancing drug rumors sweep this beautiful land we live in.

Where this goes from here all depends on baseball's new best friend, Tony Bosch. He's the human smoking gun in this case, the kind of source that rarely comes along when performance-enhancing drug rumors sweep this beautiful land we live in.

And baseball's new BFF will smoke in whichever direction it points in order to avoid the burden of the legal fees he would have needed to fight off its lawsuit, yet couldn't afford. So his testimony is COMPLETELY RELIABLE AND YOU CAN TRUST THEM ON THIS REALLY.

I can't imagine Bosch would cooperate without immunity from both the state and Feds. Can't see how he could implicate any player without implicating himself -- if he tries to do so, would he have any credibility? But why would the government give Bosch immunity to go after low-level users? Because some are famous? Maybe, but that's not how it is supposed to work.

Sorry if I missed something but is Bosch under indictment or something? I googled "Tony Bosch arrested" and found nothing. Why is he agreeing to talk at all? What does he need immunity from? What kind of real trouble is he in that would call for snitching?

imagine braun as the white whale and Selig as capt Ahab
the commissioner cannot see straight on the topic

But can you blame him? Selig testified to Congress that he's been fighting steroids in baseball since before he claims to have first heard about steroids in baseball. For a man with the power to warp time and space, screwing with the collective agreement is child's play.

I don’t know what Ryan Braun or Alex Rodriguez or Nelson Cruz or any of the other players thus far implicated in the Biogenesis mess has done. I don’t know what they’ve taken. I don’t know what they’ve said beyond their curt, lawyerly public statements. I don’t know if they’ve lied. But I know this much: any action Major League Baseball takes against them based on the cooperation of Anthony Bosch is equivalent to erecting a building on a rotten foundation. But of course, baseball has done this before, so it’s not all that surprising that they’ll attempt to do it again.

Thank god that damn Trout didn't win that MVP, that tainted bast*rd! And Harper of course. No way, no one is that good, that young, he must be cheating!! Cheaters...all of them. Death to all cheaters.

Seriously though, MLB can't just come out mention names, that's ludicrous. The guy who initially said Braun, A-rod and Cano was the guy who broke the Melky story, so I don't know, but this guy seems to be able find out some interesting tidbits..

As noted, I'm not aware Bosch is in any trouble with Fed and State authorities, at least not yet. It's not entirely clear what they could charge him with as Drs are allowed to prescribe pretty much whatever they want for any reason as long as they claim it's medically justified. I suppose they can get him for distributing stuff without a prescription (which I assume is the case) but you'd think they'd have charged him with that if they had the evidence. What's his motivation? Book deal? Or is Bosch only going to confirm those are his notebooks but not confirm delivery.

It all seems ... odd. Has from the beginning. I'm perfectly willing to believe some/many baseball players are still using but the stuff in the Bosch notebooks seemed pretty old school stuff that would be detected. Offseason usage they could have a good chance of getting away with but I recall entries about flying places to games to deliver to ARod. If Bosch had Conte's rep as a guy who knows people who know how to cook up undetectable stuff this would be more believable.

That said it would not be surprising if players connected to Miami knew the same dealer.

So I will be interested to see how MLB presents this

MLB presumably presents on possession. This will be hard unless Bosch delivers directly to them I would think. What are the evidence rules in these arb hearings -- preponderance.